An IRS proposal to make charities get donors' social security numbers if they donate more than $250 would create a new wave of paranoia about the agency's power and seriously impact charitable giving, conservative activist and Washington lawyer Cleta Mitchell tells Newsmax TV.

"The first thing that it would do is it would cause people to be very wary and might even decide not to contribute $250 or more to charities, schools, churches, museums, any number of charitable organizations," Mitchell said Monday on "Newsmax Prime" with J.D. Hayworth.

"And if you can imagine your local school auction … group of parents who are volunteers are supposed to collect the social security numbers of the donors?

"Seriously, the impact would be horrendous, it would be fraught with peril for identity thieves and it serves no useful purpose whatsoever … It would be terrible for charitable organizations."

While the IRS has said the collection of such information would not be mandatory, Mitchell isn't convinced.

"There's no such thing with the IRS being voluntary. It may be voluntary for now, but I promise you the fact they've come back with this six years after the GAO said don't do it, only suggests to me they've got some ulterior motive they are going to insist on and they're going to make it mandatory for everyone," she said.

She urged Americans to express their displeasure with the proposal on the government website regulations.gov, which allows the public to find, review, and submit comments on federal issues.

"We need to kill it dead by going on to Regulations.gov and saying don't do this. We oppose it," Mitchell said.

An IRS proposal to make charities get donors' social security numbers if they donate more than $250 would create a new wave of paranoia about the agency's power and seriously impact charitable giving, conservative activist and Washington lawyer Cleta Mitchell tells Newsmax TV.